This invention relates to an image processing system which reads, for example, manuscripts and carries out image processing on the basis of the management information corresponding to the images of the read-out manuscripts.
The technique for treating pages of manuscript images consecutively read in one operation as one unit and combining/dividing the units in an image processing system has been already disclosed.
For example, the existing application software treats pages of manuscripts consecutively read in one operation as one document. With the software, the first pages of the individual documents are listed in the form of reduced-size images. When the user selects a document displayed in a reduced-size image, moves (drags) it, and determines another document displayed in a reduced-size image to which the current document is to be moved (dropped), the page of the selected document is inserted in the first page of the document on which the current document has dropped, thereby combining the two documents into one.
Furthermore, when the user selects a document, causes a menu to appear, and selects the command ┌BREAKUP┘, the pages of the document are divided page by page.
On the other hand, the technique for taking in documents at a time in one read operation has been already disclosed.
For example, the technique is such that a special sheet with a specific mark printed on a specific area is inserted between documents, all the documents are set in an automatic document feeder, and the images of all the documents are inputted in one operation. Then, it is sensed whether the inputted image is about the sheet. If it has been sensed that it is about the sheet, the documents are divided into those before and after the sheet and each of the two groups of documents is treated as an independent single document.
These techniques are used for image filing by which images of manuscripts are stored document by document.
The conventional techniques have the following problems:
1) When documents are read consecutively in one operation, a special sheet representing the end of a document is sensed, the documents are divided automatically on the basis of the sheet, and the groups of documents after division are treated as single units. As a result, after the division, information on the order in which the individual documents are read is lost. If there has been an error in sensing the sheet, the user has to check which documents the user has inputted consecutively and combine them, which makes the operation complex.
2) Although the read history management or read order management of documents is not carried out, two documents are combined by the operation of selecting a document and dropping it on another document. Thus, the user""s erroneous operation leads to the error of combining documents unrelated to each other.
3) Even when all the manuscripts have been read physically by a high-speed scanner, the processes, including image transfer and the sensing of the special sheet, may be still in progress. In this case, the user knows which data items have been processed only after the user has processed the data items, which makes the operation complex.
As described above, when documents are read consecutively in one operation and the images of manuscripts read consecutively are automatically divided using a special sheet as an end, the following problems arise: the operation on the automatically divided documents after reading becomes complex and the processing state of documents is unknown.
The object of the present invention is to provide an image processing system which facilitates the operation on the automatically divided documents after reading and makes the processing state of documents clear, when reading documents consecutively in one operation and automatically dividing the consecutively read images of manuscripts using a special sheet as an end.
An image forming apparatus of the present invention comprises: reading means for reading images of manuscripts; attribute judging means for judging types of attributes of the images read by the reading means; storage means for storing the images read by the reading means, on the basis of rules corresponding to the attributes judged by the attribute judging means; attribute changing means for changing the types of the attributes of the images stored in the storage means; and image forming means for forming an image on the basis of the images stored in the storage means.
With the above configuration of the invention, even when, for example, a manuscript has been misjudged to be a sheet for division, groups of documents can be combined quickly by setting the attribute of the sheet for division and the attributes of normal documents and editing the attributes readily, instead of treating once judged documents and sheets as unchangeable as in the prior art. Furthermore, the process of dividing consecutive manuscripts into groups can be carried out easily by changing the attributes of the sheets and documents.